How Sunak’s future – as well as Suella Braverman’s – hangs in the balance

We have a prime minister waiting to see whether he feels strong enough to fire his home secretary, writes Andrew Grice. Whichever choice he makes, the delay is damning to his authority

The prime minister has a huge dilemma: he will look weak if he doesn’t sack Braverman but dismissing her would risk a right-wing backlash (PA)

Traditionally, Conservatives lined up to criticise left-wing Labour politicians for undermining the rightly sacred operational independence of the police. Today, the roles are reversed after Suella Braverman’s incendiary claim the police apply double standards on protests.

It’s another sign of the times: Labour is increasingly acting like a government and the Tories like an opposition. Braverman has inadvertently boosted Keir Starmer’s credentials on law and order just as the Tories draw up plans to demolish them at the coming election. Prior to the home secretary’s article in The Times criticising the police, the Tories were united on the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war, while Labour’s divisions created damaging headlines for Starmer. Now, the Tories are split over Braverman’s remarks and whether she should keep her job.

Labour was also more statesmanlike than the Tories about tomorrow’s pro-Palestinian march in London on Armistice Day; opposition frontbenchers said last weekend the planned route wouldn’t go past the Cenotaph in Whitehall, while Tories whipped up fears that it would. The organisers, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, told the Metropolitan Police a few weeks ago the march would avoid Whitehall – one reason why Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, judged there was no need to ban it.